Professorship for Dr. Denise Degen at the TU Darmstadt

Dr. Denise Degen, Junior Research Group Leader for “Physics-Based Machine Learning for Hierarchical Monitoring Systems” at the GFZ section 4.5 “Subsurface Process Modelling”, has been appointed to the Professorship of Earth Systems Modelling at the TU Darmstadt. In addition to her responsibilities at the TU Darmstadt, she is still involved in research activities at the GFZ through her junior research group. The complementary expertise of both locations also allows for the research-oriented support of future geoscientists. 

After completing her Bachelor's in Applied Geosciences at the RWTH Aachen University, Denise Degen graduated in the IDEA League Joint Master in Applied Geophysics at the TU Delft, the ETH Zürich, and the RWTH Aachen University. In 2020, she finished her Ph.D. thesis with distinction at the RWTH Aachen University, where she focused on the generation of surrogate models to enable probabilistic uncertainty quantification for geothermal applications in sedimentary basins. Her research is at the intersection of Geosciences, Applied Mathematics, and Computer Sciences and poses a strong interdisciplinary focus. The research concept is centered around the development and utilization of physics-based machine learning techniques to enable efficient and inexpensive simulations of the subsurface states to contribute to a responsible and sustainable usage of the Earth's resources, such as geothermal energy. In the context of this research approach, she received funding of more than 1.5 M€ for a BMBF junior research group within the research program “ExperTeam4KI”.